Live: Fall Out Boy

Having treated a select few fans in Sydney and Melbourne to small theatre shows earlier in the year tonight marked Australia’s rightful inclusion in Fall Out Boy’s colossal world tour cycle in honour of their comeback opus, Save Rock And Roll. Despite the drawback of not playing to a packed out Entertainment Centre, the grandeur of recent single “The Phoenix” was not lost on those in attendance. The four-piece stormed the stage adorned in black balaclavas with bassist and honourary frontman Pete Wentz proudly waving a sizeable white FOB flag while vocalist Patrick Stump urged the crowd to “Put on [their] war paint!” I don’t think we’re on MySpace anymore, Toto.

As we first discovered after popping Save Rock And Roll into our player, Stump’s vocals have improved tenfold during the band’s hiatus (and that wasn’t to say they were sub-par to begin with) and the band as a whole have tightened up their live performance. After 10 years in the game tonight was the perfect setting for the long-standing four-piece to rub their talents in the faces of any cynics.

Still acknowledging their pop-punk roots, FOB ushered out tracks from their back catalogue with older cuts “Saturday” and “Grand Theft Autumn” honouring Take This To Your Grave’s tenth birthday, the latter of which saw Stump, Wentz and axe slinger Joe Trohman take to a smaller stage at the back of the arena to give it the acoustic treatment along with “I’m Like A Lawyer…” – complete with humble audience chats about being pasty (Stump) and eating too many Tim Tams while quietly spying on One Direction (Wentz).

Racking up a decade-spanning 20+ song setlist, the Chicago quartet demonstrated the breadth of their musical career and their overall sonic progression, culminating in the rousing crowd sing-along of “Oh no, we won’t go, ‘cos we don’t know when to quit” that accompanied Save Rock And Roll’s title track. Teamed with video screen footage of music’s greats in their prime – The Beatles, The Sex Pistols, Nirvana, Michael Jackson – it reaffirmed the band’s ambition to shine a light on the classics and get the right sort of music back on the radio. A triumphant return from one of today’s finest. Fall Out Boy are back, baby.